Ebon Velvet
by Faegerhand Nachtwolfe
Summary: Financial pains, no business, and Lady constantly at his back, Dante's having a hard time being a bounty hunter. Complicating matters is a cat saving job, of all things. Enter cool ass villains, conspiracies, and dark societies! Are you ready?
1. Chapter 1

**Ebon Velvet**

**:1:**

How the hell did I let my shop get ruined to hell like this? Guess I was having too much fun. Y'know, that's the way a damn family reunion should go down. No invited guests—just party crashers, and loads and loads of bullets. Hells yeah. Shit, but I didn't really want my shop to go to hell just so I could have fun playing catch-up with Vergil. I had one hefty mess to fix up when everything was said and done. Well, no one was gonna help me—I guess besides Lady—so, I decided I'd start by giving the city government a heads up on the ruins left by the Temen-ni-gru (as if they really needed to know, but y'know…sometimes a little complaining doesn't hurt).

So, for a few months, the city handled the gritty shit. Next on the 'To-Do List' was getting a federal loan to actually get my business started up again. That was some hell. I mean, the first time around, I had some random cash laying around from some previous bounty hunting deals I'd managed when I was younger. This time around, I really had no kind of damn money—and if I did, it all got jacked by those Hell minions. Well, what made getting the loan such a pain was explaining why the hell I needed it. Y'know, killing demons didn't really sell my goal. I think I ended up telling them that I was starting up a strip club business, but maybe that was one of many frustrated pranks I hit them with while waiting for things to get back together.

Well, without going into any real detail, I can tell ya that within a year or two, the my HQ was opened and ready to roll. The name? Hell, it's kinda lame, but it had a neat edge to it—Lady came up with it. _Devil May Cry_ became my setup. I tell ya, nothing much was going down at first.

Then again, that's a bit of a lie.

-'Yo. Another cat stuck in a tree. Wanna take it?'

It was broad daylight, and I was tired as hell. I was _trying_ to do what any lazy-ass, tired man would do—sleep. Unfortunately, Lady managed to stroll in about ten minutes before. As usual, she didn't say a word as I lay with my back against the juke box.

I kept silent.

-'Uh-huh. I'm sorry sir. Mr. Sparda doesn't do that sort of work. Yes, yes, I understand that you're willing to pay, but this isn't his—…yes, sir…yes…excuse me, sir…ugh….'

I could hear a raging maniac on the other side of the line going on and on. I cracked one eye open ever-so-slightly to catch a glimpse of Lady holding the phone away from her ear like it was cancer. I started to laugh a little, but then I noticed that she wasn't hanging up the phone.

'_Eh, let her do whatever.'_

Still raging. It was too early (maybe about 1PM) for me to be hearing bullshit gibberish from a guy who wants a cat saved. Understandably, I got really annoyed. My sleep was guaranteed to be ruined for the next two days because of this idiot. So, I opened my eyes with a pissed off sigh, got up, and yanked the phone from Lady. Before I put my ear to the receiver, I gave Lady one of those 'dumb blonde' looks, even though she isn't blonde.

-'Yo, hombre.'

-'Excuse me? Is this Mr. Sparda?'

-'Fuck off.'

_ Click._ Easy as pie. Offend the customer and hang up. Keeps them from calling back if you don't want them to. That's how I roll.

-'Good morning, Dante.'

She had a nice attitude running under her words. That's how it worked between us.

-'Afternoon, Smart-Ass.'

-'I prefer Mary.'

-'I don't call you that even when I'm okay with you. What the hell are you doing here, anyway?'

By this time, I was heading for the bathroom. The night before I'd gotten ripped to shreds by a good seven straight kegs of booze. Frat parties, baby. I hate the twats, but they have decent beer in cartloads, and the occasional college girl flash. Needless to say, though, I had to have smelled like shit.

-'Well, to be honest, I was trying to see if you had an actual job, yet.'

-'What the hell's this look like to you?'

I slammed the bathroom door shut and flipped the light on, and flipped it right back off once I realized I didn't need it. Bad habit. I then glanced at the mirror.

-'_Devil May Cry_ hasn't gotten you any money. You live like a bum.'

I guess I looked like one, too. No bruises, but plenty of dirt in my hair and some clumps of grass—not to mention random kiss marks and 'BILABIAL FROSTBITE' written in pretty small letters across my forehead. Clever. But damn, I really didn't remember any of this. I must've had one helluva time, though!

-'I barely care. I had fun last night. I think I may have beat down some frat boys at Alpha Rho Kappa. I mean, I've got grass on my head.'

This is about when she started shouting, as if the bathroom door weren't paper thin. She always did that when she thought she needed to nail a lesson deep into the recesses of my skull.

-'This is how you're gonna make money, right? Going on campus, getting beer, and getting to see tits? Look, Dante, I could just walk out of here and never see you again so you can rot in your own financial hole, but y'know that I haven't done it yet.'

-'Yeah, even though I've been begging you to get the hell out of here. You smell like ass.'

I didn't really mean that last part as an insult—just thought it was refreshingly childish. One thing about her, though, is that she had a sense of humor. I heard her chuckle at that comment, but pretty much ignored it go on with her mini-monologue.

-'My point is, I want to help you get your business off its feet, but you've actually got to make money and gain a reputation before you'll get anywhere. So, I suggest we go through the Classifieds when you get out of the shower. Are you cool with that?'

-'Whatever gets you in bed tonight.'

-'Shut the hell up, you dick.'

I heard her chuckle again. She was also bad at making it seem like she was pissed at me because of the aforementioned sense of humor. Thank goodness she's no prude.

I stripped down and let the water run for a while. I sort of just looked at myself for a little while in the mirror.

'_Who cares about money…but she's right about the rep. Shit. I hate how true that is.'_

I'll give her this: she dressed well. She ditched the whole army boot garb in favor of a more secretarial outfit. She straightened her hair daily (which had grown to about shoulder-length), and wore brown contacts so that the color of her eyes were identical. She sported the same damn blouse she was running around in, back when she was oh-so-willing to shoot me in the head. Over that blouse was a black formal jacket which matched with her black slacks and black square-heeled shoes. Total makeover. She forced me into a makeover of my own, which, I will admit, I'm happy about. I look so much more badass with my nearly all-red get-up. Red coat, red vest, pants…pretty much only my undershirt and boots were black, along with my kickass buckles. Nice holster for Ebony & Ivory, too. All her doing.

Neither of us were sporting our tricked-out outfits, though. She was in T and jeans today. I was in my boxers. It was about 4PM by the time we were almost done with the Classifieds, and it was becoming more and more apparent that even the most rewarding jobs on the page weren't going to cut it. I was sighing, yawning left and right, and just letting myself slam onto the floor back-first from time to time. She was getting a good hint that I was getting insanely restless, but what was odd was that she was starting to get restless herself.

-'I don't you're ever going to make money, Dante….'

'_Rep….'_

-'What about my rep, Lady?'

-'I don't know…looks hopeless. Y'know, you could actually do all this find-the-shit out on your own for a change. It _is _your reputation, after all.'

-'Dammit, there you go again.'

-'What?'

She dropped the newspaper onto my desk, miffed. Before she could make way to attack me in her rage, I was up on my feet throwing my hands up.

-'Ease up, babe. I was just messing with you. I'll take a last gander at the newspaper.'

She cracked her first smile in two hours right there. I was glad—meant she wasn't gonna hound my ass for at least another twenty minutes.

-'Thanks, Dante.'

-'Yeah, yeah, whatever.'

I snatched the newspaper and looked through all the job requests that we'd circled as 'Possibly-Maybe-Maybe Not?', furrowing my eyebrows at one in particular.

-'Hey, take a look here. I kinda recognize this name.'

I jabbed my finger a few times under the name Benjamin Gehenna.

-'Well, only figures. That's the guy who calls every few days talking about that damn cat in the tree.'

I frowned in disappointment.

-'No way….'

-'Yeah well, he pays. No harm in considering him, however annoying.'

-'A cat, huh?'

-'He pays the most, even.'

-'A cat…dammit. Fuck, Lady! A cat?'

-'Full moon tonight, Dante. Might get lucky, and it'll transform into a massive were-cat.'

That pissed me off, honestly. I was dying—DYING—to fuck some demons up, but here I was, stuck with the prospect of saving a damn cat from a tree. I paced about the room, mumbling shit under my breath, as she kept on holding a proverbial carrot in front of my eyes, making the sound of saving a pussy from a tree more and more attractive. Well, not attractive, but do-able. I told her I'd sleep on it. Shit, I already had made up my mind. I needed to do something. Didn't hurt that the guy was offering $500,000. I mean, a bit hokey, but I wasn't one to question too much, y'know?

Maybe that's a good thing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ebon Velvet**

**:2:**

So, things were getting a little fishy and/or a little interesting. Exhibit A: Dante (moi)—good looking, broke, and pissed. Exhibit B: Lady—hot, apparently responsible, keen bullshit meter, and on my ass 24/7. Exhibit C: Benjamin Gehenna—lame, has a cat, rich as shit, and somehow is willing to pay me. Honestly, I don't know how all that fits together or how it makes things sound fishy, but I thought it'd be cool to talk about exhibits.

Well, it was about 8 o'clock at night before we made any effort to leave HQ. Finding the guy's house was harder than I ever thought, considering it was a mansion with about thirty-eight bathrooms in it and enough queen beds to make him Henry VIII. We got there at about 10:30PM—at least, that's what I remember—mad as hornets, because we hadn't had food since 2. The full moon was out, just like Lady advertised, and the damn cat was in the tree, just like ol' Ben Kenobi did.

_Knock knock._

I heard what sounded like a really clumsy paranoid fart tripping over his entire damn entertainment system. Apparently, Ben was rushing to get to the door. I took the time to step back and absorb enough of this rich air to either disgust myself into puke-mode or to become really fuckin' envious of the lifestyle. I mean, I was broke after all. His mansion, by the by, didn't take up a huge amount of space, but it was a good six stories in height, and riddled with gold lining and surrounded by Greek pillars. This man must've thought he was a god.

-'Hello? Hello? Who's there?'

Lo and behold, his wrinkly face and Rogaine-saturated head barely revealed itself through the crack he'd made for the door—well, the door was chained, after all.

-'Yo, hombre. Recall the voice?' I asked him, cool and all that shit.

-'I…don't think so….'

-'"Fuck off." Does that ring a bell?'

His face lit up like a damn Christmas tree.

-'Dante Sparda! You…after all these weeks…you've finally come. I p-p-pr-promise I'll pay you the $500,000. Just…j-just get that cat out of the three for me, please!'

This was where Lady jumped in, secretary-like with an overcoat on top, and apparently intimidating. Hot shit.

-'Um, excuse me, sir…about that…. Why are you paying so much?'

His eyes were darting all over the place. Whatta whack-job.

-'Could…I mean…would it be too much to ask you to just get the cat for me, and then I'll explain, please?'

-'What if you're bluffing, Mister? I'm not trying to throw mud on your credibility, but I'm not exactly very happy about taking two and a half hours trying to find your house.'

-'Miss, could I first ask who you are?'

-'Fuck who I am! What's the deal with the cat? Why hasn't it gotten down, and why the hell haven't you picked it out of the tree? Why hasn't anyone else? Why the hell have you been calling Mr. Sparda for weeks just to get a damn pussy out of the tree?'

I was pretty taken aback by her mini-explosion, but that was nothing. You know when she's mad the moment she whips out her pistols. He didn't know that, though. The guy was ready to piss his pants out of fear. He could barely speak right after that.

-'M-m-ma'am…pl-...plea-…Miss! I...she—Mittens—she…she claw-…she clawed me every time. Please…g-g-g-et her for me! I beg y-y-you!'

God, he was choking like a lil' bitch. Well, I was behind Lady during all this, so I'm not sure if she gave him a dirty look, but she usually gives dirty looks before she cedes and walks off do fix the whole problem peacefully. I couldn't do that, personally, but that's why I had her do the talking. I would've shot the motherfucker after two of his stutter-matic sentences. So, Kenobi points out to us the way to the tree that his cat is stuck in. Let me tell ya, the tree was the skinniest piece of shit I've seen in my life. To top it all of, it was probably as tall as I am.

Fishy. Very fishy.

Well, I just sighed for the hell of it and walked over to the tree. I'll give Ben this—that cat was quite feisty indeed. The moment I reached out for her she started freakin' out like a pig on heat. I grabbed the grey pussy, holding tightly for fear of letting the wench slide right through my grip. She was still flailing around like a fish out of water, but I held her out to Benjamin. That thing's eyes were swirling around and making a crazy light show, like those tricked out postcards of cities at night with streaks of car lights littering the streets. Needless to say, I was kind of starting to wonder what the hell was wrong with this twat.

-'Here you go, Mr. Gehenna.' Lady announced as I held the cat out to her master.

He let out the craziest sigh of relief I've ever seen, then unchained the door, gesturing us to come in. The cat calmed down shortly after the gesture, and I tossed it in. Lady tapped me on the shoulder, then leaned in to whisper into my ear.

-'At the risk of spewing the obligatory line for a crazy scene like this—something's very, very wrong with this picture.'

I shrugged, and walked in. Things were getting freaky, and I couldn't help but start to get excited. There _was _something very fucking wrong with the whole situation, and I was hoping that shit was about to go down. Lady followed shortly, closing the door behind us, and Mittens leaped into her master's arms. We just sort of stood there under the circular room, with the gynormous chandelier hanging from the domed ceiling.

'_Hol-y shit…. How the hell did you manage a dome in a six-story mansion…?'_

He sat down in a giant chair in front of an electric radiator, rubbing his head all over his cat's body. This was getting a little awkward, to say the least. Though I was inwardly finding it somewhat funny, Lady was starting get all riled up again.

-'Alright, where's the money, Mr. Gehenna?'

He turned his chair around, so as to hid himself from us completely.

-'One more favor…please.'

Apparently, he wasn't freaking out as much. In fact, he sounded almost excited.

-'What the hell? That wasn't part of the deal!'

-'We never really had a deal, Miss. In any case, I thank you immensely. No one was going to be able to tear her from that tree. That's the way she is, that damned Mittens…always being so belligerent…so-'

-'-the favor, Mr. Gehenna?'

She was tapping her feet like it was that time of the month and she needed to leak.

-'Yes…. Well, it's simple. I want you to take Mittens. And never return here again.'

He got up and put Mittens in her cage and went into another room, very quiet-like and all. I turned to Lady, my excitement having faded away.

-'I'm not digging this at all.'

-'I'm digging this less, Dante. This guy's way fucked up, and I don't know what the hell we're gonna do with a cat…the only good thing to come from this is the money. Something still doesn't feel right at all about any of this.'

-'God, you are starting to sound like a movie.'

She wasn't in the mood at all. A swift jab to the shoulder was hint enough. Before she had any ideas to beat me down anymore, Benjamin Gehenna reappeared with a trunk of what I presumed was money. Once in the room, he immediately opened the trunk and proved to us that he wasn't bluffing about the reward.

-'You see? $500,000 in cold cash. Now, if you would leave and never return. I'd very much appreciate it.'

Y'know, I really wasn't digging how not-freaked-out he was right then. Slightly grumbling, I grabbed the trunk of money, while Lady grabbed hold of the cat cage, and we were out of there without a word. He slammed the door behind us, which sent Lady into a silent swirl of rage. I decided this was my chance to express her anger for her.

-'Bitch!'

For spice, I pulled Ivory out of its holster and plowed three shots through his front door. I made sure to add:

-'Much obliged, motherfucker.'

And we were out of the bastard's hair.

-----

The trip back home was a weird one. To get to Gehenna's mansion, we had to take the freeway surrounded by forests. I guess you could say he was rather isolated (which is why he didn't even need a gate surrounding his house). By the time that we were re-entering the city and getting near HQ, it was probably well into the AM. The moon hung at mid-height in the sky. There were few cars blazing the streets, but they definitely were blazing. I could tell Lady was getting incredibly tired, and that she was still pissed. I offered to drive a few times, but she only smashed the pedal with every request. You learn to keep your shit shut around pissed off women, especially after dealing with them when they have guns and rocket launchers at their disposal.

It was pitch black—like we were driving through a mammoth ass. The lights, for some reason, were fucking up that night. So, all we had were the car's headlights, which weren't bad. I mean, it was a relatively old blue Cadillac, so we didn't expect to be depending on a pair of suns. What we had was, again, just enough for the job, and we were cruising (re: burning asphalt) right where we needed to.

Though Mittens was pretty quiet, her damn collar would not clanging all the damn time. I knew I couldn't shut her metal tag up, I was growing more and more curious as to what the hell was carved on it.

-'Hey, I wanna take a look at this cat's collar. It's making a lot of noise and all…I've got this image of a damn floating, clanging cat tag in my head. I need to see the piece of shit.'

She was quiet for a minute. I think what I said annoyed her even more. I swear, women annoy me with their lame fuses.

-'Whatever. Flip the light on.'

So, I did. I tilted the cage every which way to get a nice vantage point. It really wasn't worth a damn, though. All that was carved on the tag was 'XL'.

-'XL? This cat's not even fat.'

Lady glanced quickly at me before focusing on the road again. She suddenly forgot how annoyed she was—her face looked more like she was completely confused.

-'XL? Why would XL be carved into her tag instead of her name?'

I scratched my head, Lady blinked, and the cat sort of just…licked herself. All of a sudden, though, light burst from the cracked out lamp posts, forcing us all to squint for a moment. The lamps then shattered into small specks of light, and everything faded right back to black, and we were left completely blind from the instant switch.

_CRASH!_

An enormous figure impacted the ground right in front of the car, and we smashed right into it. The car, in a split second, went from pimp-style, long-ass Caddy, to a mess of metallic debris. We were launched right out of the sides of the shattered ride. I rolled what felt like a million times along the street, trying to get a hold of what the hell was going on. Thankfully, Mittens' cage was still in my hand. I really couldn't see anything—the moon was fading into darkness before our eyes. Something fucked up was going down.

-'Dante! What's going on?'

I could hear her, but I couldn't see her worth shit. I wish I had been worried about her, but that was the last thing on my mind.

'_There are at least three bodies surrounding us. They're clearly trying to attack us, but are they out for blood?'_

I could feel hot blood course through every one of my veins. I was getting excited—_happy_.

-'So, what's the honor, folks?' I asked to the darkness around me.

A sort of stage whisper was the first to reply:

-'We'll be taking that cat from you. It's officially out of your hands.'

'_Huh? What the hell?'_

I smirked.

-'I don't think that's going to work out too well…I was looking forward to having a pet around the house. Plus, I didn't waste five hours of my time just to give you back a fuckin' feline.'

A bunch of pompous villain laughter filled the air. It was annoying as hell, but I'm at least glad that they laugh. The murderous bastards that don't laugh are no fun at all.

-'I don't know how you got into this mess, but don't mingle any more than you need to. We're taking the cat. It's very important to us.'

'_I bet they'll fight for it!'_

-'You know what, fellas, I dig your spunk. You've got huge-ass heads, prolly, and I can only respect your cockiness. The deal is, though, that I'm cocky as fuck, too. So, how's about this—let's have fun. If you can pry this cat from my fingers, then sure, she's yours. A word of warning, though, guys—I intend to kill you before you manage that.'

I could hear Lady breathing too quickly for her own good…she was mortified. Understandable—it's been forever and a half since she last stomped some ass. Admittedly, I was slightly nervous. Really, I was just nervous because I couldn't see worth a damn.

-'So be it. We'll get what we came for.'

More reason for me to smirk.

-'Lady! Do you have an oozi under your overcoat?'

She took a while to answer. She must've gulped a huge wad of spit.

-'Yeah, but I can't see anything!'

I got up onto my feet and held tightly onto Mittens' cage in one hand, pulling Ebony out with my other. Ebony loved the dark. I lifted the gun up and spread my legs out slightly. I didn't have a sword with me, but I'd make do. I've managed worse, I think.

-'Don't worry about seeing shit….'

I could hear the big one start moving, however slowly. The other two—I could hear it—were coming straight for me at insane speeds.

-'Just start shooting at my voice!'


End file.
